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Nope. The game just has some really, really obtuse puzzles. Don't pick up the junk mail in the second room? That'll make the Babel Fish puzzle (the one on the

Nope. The game just has some really, really obtuse puzzles. Don't pick up the junk mail in the second room? That'll make the Babel Fish puzzle (the one on the Vogon ship) unwinnable. Ate the sandwich in the pub instead of feeding it to the dog? That'll kill you much later in the game. And so on. None of this was hinted at in the "feelies" shipped with the game or in the books; players were expected to figure it out through trial and error. Games in this era were written with the expectation that you'd have to play through them many times to get everything right. It made them last longer (in terms of play time), but also made them incredibly frustrating to play.

ghaff 6y ago
One of the philosophical issues I have with a lot of IF--which I've actually discussed with the author of this game--is that I feel you should, at least in principle, be able to complete a run through in a game in one try rather than having to make essentially random trial and error choices. Unsurprisingly, he didn't really agree. (Which there are a lot of in Hitchhiker's. Although I didn't really complete that many Infocom games in general.)
- stinkytaco 6y ago
  Did he give a logic for this? I speculate in the case of this game, the developers and Adams wanted you to experience as much of the story (and humor) as possible. Failing was part of the fun. Is that the case or was it the case for other games?
  - ghaff 6y ago
    Not really. >Failing was part of the fun. I think this is part of it. And I think it's hard to have puzzles of sufficient difficulty that good game players would feel they got their "money's worth" out of a game without less advanced players feeling that puzzles were almost insolvable. (Doesn't mean you should really have puzzles that require trial and error though.) In all fairness to the author, his other games are generally easier and one of them, A Mind Forever Voyaging, really is interactive fiction more than a puzzler.
    - EricE 6y ago
      RE: Failing as part of the fun Same arguments in AARPGs around picking up gold :)

ghaff 6y ago

One of the philosophical issues I have with a lot of IF--which I've actually discussed with the author of this game--is that I feel you should, at least in principle, be able to complete a run through in a game in one try rather than having to make essentially random trial and error choices. Unsurprisingly, he didn't really agree. (Which there are a lot of in Hitchhiker's. Although I didn't really complete that many Infocom games in general.)

stinkytaco 6y ago
Did he give a logic for this? I speculate in the case of this game, the developers and Adams wanted you to experience as much of the story (and humor) as possible. Failing was part of the fun. Is that the case or was it the case for other games?
- ghaff 6y ago
  Not really. >Failing was part of the fun. I think this is part of it. And I think it's hard to have puzzles of sufficient difficulty that good game players would feel they got their "money's worth" out of a game without less advanced players feeling that puzzles were almost insolvable. (Doesn't mean you should really have puzzles that require trial and error though.) In all fairness to the author, his other games are generally easier and one of them, A Mind Forever Voyaging, really is interactive fiction more than a puzzler.
  - EricE 6y ago
    RE: Failing as part of the fun Same arguments in AARPGs around picking up gold :)